English sequences events partly through tense: I had eaten (pluperfect) sits earlier in time than I left (simple past), and the morphology alone tells you the order. Afrikaans cannot do this — it has essentially one past tense, the perfect with het, and the pluperfect (had ge-) is so rare in living speech that you should treat it as unavailable. So how does Afrikaans say "after we had eaten" or "before we leave"? It lets the conjunction do the work that English hands to the verb. This page is about that division of labour: nadat for what happened earlier, toe for narrative sequence, voordat for what happens next, and reeds / al for "already." (Conditional sequencing — if this, then that — is a different machine; see conditional sentences.)
The core problem: one past tense
Afrikaans collapsed the Germanic past system. There is no simple preterite for most verbs (ek loop covers both "I walk" and, in narrative, "I walked"), and the everyday past is the perfect: ek het geloop. Crucially, there is no productive pluperfect. English marks anteriority — one past event being earlier than another past event — with had: after we had eaten, we left. Afrikaans has no comfortable equivalent verb form.
Ons het laat geëet en toe gaan slaap.
We ate late and then went to sleep. (one past tense — het geëet — carries both events)
Note the orthography of geëet (ate): the diaeresis on the second ë marks that the two e's belong to separate syllables (ge-ëet), not a single long vowel. This is a spelling trap worth fixing in your memory now, because eet (to eat) shows up in exactly the temporal sentences this page is about.
nadat + perfect = "after [I] had done"
This is the heart of the page. To say "after we had eaten, we left," Afrikaans uses nadat ("after") with an ordinary perfect — nadat ons geëet het. The perfect does not change shape; it is the same geëet het you would use for a plain "we ate." What signals that this event happened earlier than the main-clause event is purely nadat itself. The conjunction means "after," so the clause it introduces is automatically understood as anterior — prior in time. English needs both after and had; Afrikaans needs only nadat.
Nadat sy geëet het, het sy gegaan.
After she had eaten, she left. (nadat marks anteriority; the verb stays a plain perfect)
Look closely at that sentence. The subordinate clause Nadat sy geëet het ends with the finite het (verb-final, because nadat is a subordinator). Then the main clause begins, and because the subordinate clause came first, V2 inversion kicks in: het sy gegaan (finite verb second, before the subject). This double-het shape — ...het, het... — looks odd to beginners but is completely standard.
Nadat ons die kontrak geteken het, het ons 'n bottel wyn oopgemaak.
After we had signed the contract, we opened a bottle of wine.
Hy het eers gebel nadat hy die nuus gehoor het.
He only phoned after he had heard the news. (main clause first, then nadat)
The lesson to internalise: nadat carries the 'had done' anteriority that English marks with the pluperfect. The conjunction does the temporal work the morphology cannot. Once you trust this, you stop reaching for a verb form that does not exist.
toe drives past sequence
For plain narrative sequence in the past — "and then" — Afrikaans reaches for toe. It does two jobs. As a conjunction it means "when" (in past narration specifically); as a sentence-opener it means "then." Stringing events with toe is how Afrikaans tells a story.
Toe ek by die huis kom, was niemand tuis nie.
When I got home, nobody was in. (toe = 'when', past narrative)
Notice that toe as the conjunction "when" is reserved for the past. For "when" in the present or future you use wanneer or as, never toe. Mixing these up is one of the most common learner errors, treated below.
As a connector meaning "then," toe opens the next clause and — being a fronted element — triggers V2 inversion:
Sy het die deur oopgesluit, toe ruik sy die rook.
She unlocked the door, then she smelled the smoke. (toe = 'then', verb ruik before subject sy)
Ons het gewag en gewag, en toe kom hy uiteindelik.
We waited and waited, and then he finally came.
Toe die telefoon lui, het almal stilgeraak.
When the phone rang, everyone went quiet. (toe-clause first, then V2 in the main clause)
Between them, nadat and toe cover most of past-time sequencing: nadat when you want to stress that one event was completed before another, toe when you simply want the next thing in the chain.
voordat = "before" — what comes next
For posteriority — the event that comes later than the main one — Afrikaans uses voordat ("before"). The clause it introduces describes what has not yet happened, so it naturally takes a present-tense verb even when the whole sentence is about the future.
Voordat ons vertrek, moet ons pak.
Before we leave, we must pack. (voordat-clause in the present; the leaving is still to come)
Was jou hande voordat jy eet.
Wash your hands before you eat. (an instruction; voordat + present)
Ek wil die verslag klaarmaak voordat die baas terugkom.
I want to finish the report before the boss gets back.
A useful symmetry to lock in: nadat looks backward (the clause it introduces happened earlier, so it tends to take the perfect), while voordat looks forward (the clause it introduces happens later, so it tends to take the present). The conjunctions encode the direction of time; the verb forms follow.
reeds and al = "already" — completion before a reference point
Sometimes you need to say an event was already complete by a certain point — English "already," "by then." Afrikaans uses reeds (more formal) and al (everyday) for this. They are the closest Afrikaans gets to flagging anteriority within a single clause, without a subordinate conjunction.
Toe ek daar aankom, het die vergadering reeds begin.
When I arrived, the meeting had already begun. (reeds carries the 'already / by then' anteriority)
This sentence is the proof of the whole page. English uses the pluperfect had begun to place the meeting's start before the arrival. Afrikaans has no pluperfect — so it uses the plain perfect het begin plus reeds to supply the "by that point, already" meaning. Again: a small word does the work tense cannot.
Ek het al klaar gewerk toe jy gebel het.
I'd already finished working when you called. (al = 'already', informal)
For the full range of reeds and al, including their other uses, see the temporal conjunctions page; for the rare pluperfect and why Afrikaans mostly avoids it, see the pluperfect.
Common mistakes
❌ Nadat sy het geëet, sy het gegaan. (meaning: After she had eaten, she left — verb order wrong in both clauses)
Incorrect — the nadat-clause is verb-final (geëet het), and the main clause inverts after it (het sy gegaan).
✅ Nadat sy geëet het, het sy gegaan.
After she had eaten, she left.
Two errors at once: the subordinate clause must end in het, and because the subordinate clause comes first, the main clause must invert (V2).
❌ Wanneer ek gister by die huis kom, was niemand tuis nie. (meaning: When I got home yesterday… — wanneer used for the past)
Incorrect — for 'when' in past narration Afrikaans uses toe, not wanneer.
✅ Toe ek gister by die huis kom, was niemand tuis nie.
When I got home yesterday, nobody was in.
Toe is "when" in the past; wanneer is "when" in the present or future. This split has no English equivalent and must be learned deliberately.
❌ Sy het gegaan nadat sy het geëet gehad. (meaning: She left after she had eaten — invented pluperfect)
Incorrect — there is no 'het geëet gehad' pluperfect; nadat + a plain perfect already means 'had eaten'.
✅ Sy het gegaan nadat sy geëet het.
She left after she had eaten.
Do not build a pluperfect by stacking gehad onto a participle. Nadat plus the ordinary perfect already delivers the "had done" meaning.
❌ Voordat ons vertrek het, moet ons pak. (meaning: Before we leave, we must pack — perfect after voordat for a future event)
Incorrect — voordat looks forward, so the event is still to come and takes the present: voordat ons vertrek.
✅ Voordat ons vertrek, moet ons pak.
Before we leave, we must pack.
Because voordat introduces an event that has not yet happened, its verb is present, not perfect.
Key takeaways
- Afrikaans has one past tense (the perfect with het) and essentially no pluperfect — anteriority cannot be marked on the verb.
- nadat + perfect carries the "had done" meaning English marks with the pluperfect: the conjunction does the temporal work the morphology cannot.
- toe drives past narrative sequence — "when" (past only) and "then"; it triggers V2 inversion when it opens a clause.
- voordat introduces a later event and takes the present tense, mirroring nadat's backward-looking perfect.
- reeds (formal) / al (informal) supply "already / by then," flagging completion before a reference point without a subordinate clause.
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- Conditional Sentences with as and souB1 — Real conditionals use as + present (As dit reën, bly ons binne); counterfactual ones stack sou with a clause-final verb cluster (As ek geld gehad het, sou ek dit gekoop het).
- Temporal Conjunctions: toe, as, wanneer, terwyl, nadat, voordatB1 — The subordinators that locate one event in time relative to another — toe, as, wanneer, terwyl, nadat, voordat, sodra — all sending the verb to the clause end.
- The Pluperfect: had ge-B2 — Afrikaans has a real pluperfect — had plus a ge-participle — but it is formal and rare; everyday speech marks 'past-in-past' with reeds or al on the ordinary perfect.